The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-01-17
HOME OF THE BANANA.
HOW THE POPULAR FRUIT is
SHIPPED AND TRANSPORTED.

Growth of the Banana Traf1c-Risks of
the Trade-Varieties of the PIantain.
Value of an Acre of Bananas-The
Crop--Hov to Cook Them.
A few weeks ego stood under a bunch of
ripe bananas hanging from beam in house
in Catacamas, one OF the most thrifty of
Olancho pueblos. As a personal favor the
Indian owner Of the house suspended for a
moment operations on the bedstead he was
hewing out of solid mahogany, and sold the
fruit TO me for two reals That was equal to
twenty cents of American money. L can
prove that the fruit was paid for, for dozen
witnesses saw the whole transaction, and
laughed at my companion when he jauntily
caught hold of one end of the bunch, and let
go to get better hold. He had not expected
that the thing would weigh nearly or quito
100 pounds. The comandante, in whose house
we lodged, assured US, when had logged
the bunch to his dining N, that the cabi-
netmaker was a sharp -scal, IN that he had
charged us twice much as would have been
an ample price. "But," he reflected, philo-
sophically, you must pay for being Amer-
canos and strangers" AS it was too late we
tried to not mourn too deeply the loss OF our
ten cents, and ate the fully ripe, mealy, sweet
fruit. Many a time before and after that
bought bananas for two to four centaVoS q
dozen.
Considerable quantities of fruit are brought
from Nicaragua, but about the middle of May
quarantine regulations forbade the entrance
of vessels from ports on the east coast of that
country without passing very close examin-
alton and undergoing considerable delay at
the quarantine stations. Any detention would
be most injurious to fruit so perishable as
are bananas, plantains, mangoes and other
tropical fruits few days in quarantine in
hot weather would be as fatal to fruit in a
vessels hold as Yellow Jack would be to a
patient on whom it had hold; therefore craft
trading to suspected regions refused to receive
cargoes of fruit. They could not afford to
risk losses. That kept out of the market a
large quantity of fruit.
DOOM OF THE POOL.
For years two houses in New Orleans prac-
tically monopolized the fruit trade of the
coast of Spanish Honduras, the islands there
about and of that little neck of Guatemala
which separates Spanish from British Hondu-
raS. Competition between the two firms was
raising prices, 50 they pooled their issues and
divided the trade between them. That worked
nicely, and prices were damned down by
the traders, because they 'take all the chances,
ye see" and leave the planter none. But one
bright day ugly black smoke away to the
northward heralded the approach of the Maria
p and the doom of the pool The steamer is
owned by a firm of much enterprise and with
money galore, so she harvested nearly all of
the fruit then ready for shipment. Every
bunch of bananas, every plantain, every co
cOanut, every mango, and all the oranges,
lemons and lines the officers of the Maria p
could buy were promptly secured, slowed
away in her hold, and contracts made for en-
suing trips. When the old line steamers ar
rived there was not half load for them, SO
they were filed with profanity by their Off
CH,gS The DlaOtprS seemed tO enjoy the
situation, which was unkind of them.
OF the musa or plantain there are a great
number of sorts; some cultivatOrS claim that
they have eighty different kinds, but only two
or three varieties are known in the markets
of the United States. The variety popularity
known in the West Indies and in the several
Central American republics as platinos, or
plantainS, are seen in very few places in the
United States outside of New Orleans The
sorts generally recognized in the states as
bananas either red or yellow, but the fruit
is found i'll all shades produced by the mixture
of the two colors named By far the greater
part of the bananas brought to this country
are eaten raw, but they may be cooked in
several ways. Fried in butter they are excel
lent food baked in the skins they resemble
delicious pears boiled they are palatable;
dried after fully ripening they form sweet
paste, and in every form they are very nu-
young plants are boiled and eaten as aSpara-
gus is.
AN ACRE OF BANANAS.
Scientists declare that All acre of bananas
produces vastly more nutritious food than an
acre Of wheat of potatoes will Cattle,
horses, goats, pigs and poultry join man in
his liking for this fruit, without which many
family would be on short commons mach of
the time. 1t is to dvyellers in the tropics what
no 70 hos fo fIoo T-ic No
der that belief was accorded to the story that
the plantain was the forbidden fruit Eve in
vited Adam to share with her, and that it was
the grapes" that the spies brought away
from the Promised Land. If plantains grew
in Canaan the eagerness of the Israelites to
gobble the whole country is satisfactorily ac-
counted for.
The usefulness of the plant does not end
with the feeding of man and beast. The
leaves furnish an excellent thatch, and the
stalks supply large quantity of fiber of great
strength and varying degrees Of fineneSS.
Some of this fiber is so exceedingly fine that
an entire garment made of it may be hidden
in the hand. But notwithstanding the many
uses to which the pIantain may be put, and
its almost incalculable value as food, not one
person in ten thousand who would probably
become regular consumers ever buys a
banana or has ever seen plantain. There is
plenty of room for the expansion of tia bust
ness of growing the fruit and some reason for
thinking that it will increase, for the business
is said to be fairly profitable now that refrig-
orator cars and cold storage on steamers have
made it possible to carry the most perishable
tropical productions to most remote parts of
the United States and to Europe.
The cost Of preparing plantation of plan
taiIs OF bananas is said to be about $15 per
acre Nine months after the shoots are stuck
into the ground the first crop is ready for
shipment, and from that time on punches are
continually maturing. New plants spring up
20 take the place of the old stalks, which die
after producing a single bunch each of fruit.
The punches weigh from thirty to eighty
pounds. Stems having less than six "hands'
or half-circles of fruit are rejected by the
buyers for market as being too small TO be
worth the thirtye1ve to fifty cents they pay
on tho coast. ke vessels in the trade can
carry from 20, - to 10000 punches, and the
punches sell in Eew Orleans for about a dol
lar more than they cost on the coast. The
plants are set about sixteen feet apart, and
receive little or care after the planting
until the time comes to cut the larger
lunches and to cut down all the young plants
not wanted. The dead stalks, with all their
vaIunble fiber, are left to rot on the ground
az w p" in Chicago Times.
Sin~uIar Relic of the Flood,